Storm Emma: Trains and flights cancelled after snow batters UK

The train operator serving the busiest station in Britain was blunt in its message to commuters: “South Western Railway cannot guarantee to get you to your destination this evening.”

The firm urged people not to travel, but told those who did that services would be ending by about 8pm on Friday. It aimed to avoid the series of failures that led to hundreds of passengers being trapped overnight in trains stranded in Dorset and Hampshire, after the “third rail” used to provide power iced up.

As Storm Emma devastated the UK, other train operators chorused: “Stay at home.” It was the same advice police forces had issued to motorists the day before.

Arriva Trains Wales suspended all services except for a handful of links in North Wales. The train operator said: “Both Arriva Trains Wales and Network Rail have had to take the difficult decision to cancel all services in the southern part of Wales.

“As a result, customers are advised not to attempt to travel. A reduced service is expected to operate on most routes on Saturday 3 March.”

Great Western Railways ran a skeleton service on some lines, including between Swansea and London Paddington, but suspended many routes including links to the Cotswolds.

The last trains of the day between Birmingham and Worcester on West Midlands Railway ran at about 5pm.

For a time services through Birmingham New Street station were suspended because of overhead line problems.

And for a third day no trains could run between England and Scotland. The West Coast Main Line was suspended north of Carlisle, while the East Coast Main Line had no trains beyond Newcastle.

ScotRail said: “Again, we will be winding down earlier than normal this evening. Tomorrow we may have to test the lines again to ensure safety before we are able to start running trains.”

While services on the key links from Edinburgh to Glasgow and Aberdeen were running, dozens of Scottish routes were suspended including direct Glasgow-to-Aberdeen trains, links from Edinburgh to North Berwick and Perth, and the far north line from Inverness to Wick.

For most of the day main line services in the north of England were running sporadically with cancellations and delays.

For airline passengers, wholesale cancellations at many UK airports were exacerbated by problems in Ireland and the north-east US.

Hundreds of flights to and from Heathrow were cancelled, including 200 on British Airways alone.

Virgin Atlantic cancelled nine outbound long-haul flights, including links to Seattle, San Francisco and Shanghai. Several Virgin flights were grounded due to bad weather in Boston, Washington and New York, where very strong winds, low cloud and freezing rain led to hundreds of cancellations.

Travellers hoping to use London City airport had a difficult day. The first three services from Edinburgh to the Docklands airport were cancelled, and when they finally started up from Edinburgh, British Airways had to divert to Stansted because the runway was closed at London City.

There were some other extreme diversions - several BA flights landed nearly 200 miles away in Manchester, while a service from Palma ended up in Rotterdam.

Saturday’s flight schedules will see many cancellations. At Bristol airport, which started operating from lunchtime on Friday, the first two Amsterdam departures on Saturday are cancelled because the aircraft and crews could not get in.

Dozens of flights were cancelled to and from Gatwick, mainly on easyJet, which has its largest base at the Sussex airport.

Scotland’s biggest airport, Edinburgh, operated for most of the day, but with dozens of cancellations and some very long delays. The flight from Reykjavik due in at 9.30am was 10 hours late, while a British Airways arrival from London City was expected to be eight hours behind schedule.

Glasgow airport saw around 90 per cent of its flights cancelled. One beneficiary was Prestwick, which despite being only 30 miles from Glasgow remained open throughout the extreme weather.

The airport has handled around 20 diverted flights and 3,000 passengers in the past three days, including an Emirates flight from Dubai.